Pinter’s ‘Dumb Waiter’ to Open ABC Dramatic Series; Ensemble Studio Theatre Gets New Artistic Director

ABC has now confirmed that the first in its recently announced program of hourlong to 90-minute dramatic specials is to be Harold Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter.” It will be directed by Robert Altman but its stars are a surprise: John Travolta and Tom Conti. Pinter’s “The Room” will follow and casting for it is “in progress.”

“These are the first dramatic specials in the hour format that we’ve done in years,” said Gary L. Pudney, ABC vice president and senior executive in charge of specials and talent, who has put this interdisciplinary project together. “It’s a rather brave attempt to bring theater to TV and seems to be a rebirth of the form. We’re now looking for shows for Carol Burnett, Marlo Thomas and Jack Lemmon--all have expressed an interest. And we’re developing a special with Katharine Hepburn called ‘Me and Cynthia,’ written by her about life with her companion/secretary.”

Following the Pinter plays will be the 90-minute adaptation of Donald Freed’s “Circe and Bravo,” which the playwright is adapting. Faye Dunaway, who starred in the successful London production of this play last year, will again star, with her company producing. (Gale Anne Hurd and Charles Simon will serve as executive producers.)

Pudney, who has just joined the Center Theatre Group board of directors at the Music Center, made a point of saying he is “going to explore the possibility of doing something from those stages.

“All I want,” he added, “is for these specials to be special and show a respect for the audience. We’ll find the great playwrights and see if they have material that fits into that frame. I’m trying to get Doc (Neil) Simon to be my Pinter of comedy. I’m out for the Emmys and the Peabodys and that kind of honor. We hope to make the old new again, harking back to the Golden Age of TV with its memorable dramatic works. The advertisers recognize that these programs are a way to do it. They’ve been very enthusiastic.”

The network has 35 hours of this “special” time to sell and Pudney is considering a wide range of possibilities--from straight drama and comedy to variety shows, musicals, events, even adventure shows in the order of the National Geographic specials.

“The Dumb Waiter,” which begins shooting in Montreal on Feb. 21, will air later this spring. The balance of the specials will air next season.

NEW MAN AT THE TOP: David Kaplan, responsible for the zany staging of “Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights” at the Ensemble Studio Theatre last May, has been appointed artistic director of that organization on the West Coast.

“I don’t know if it’s condolences or congratulations I should be getting,” Kaplan deadpanned Tuesday. Among the projects being readied under his leadership is a “Cherry Orchard” that Kaplan will direct in a new translation by Laurence Senelick, a professor at Tufts considered an authority on Chekhov. It opens in April.

“I’m trying to preserve some of the Russian words,” Kaplan said. “There is an obscure peasant word, nedotyopa , the last word of the play. It means something chopped with an ax, but not completely severed. The idea is these characters are half-chopped lives. Incomplete. The word repeats throughout the play like a musical phrase. It makes me respect it as a piece of conscious writing.

“Believe it or not,” he continued, “I’ve been directing since I was about 16, in high school in New Jersey. It combines the three things I love best: literature, art and gossip. It also has something to do with history, and I thought, ‘Yeah, I can do this.’

“I got my directing degree at Yale, and the University of New Mexico invited me to Albuquerque to do a Brecht workshop. I’ve been working professionally ever since.”

Kaplan, who is still teaching and has his own studio in New York, also developed “Sister and Miss Lexie,” an iconoclastic Eudora Welty project set to music, “something that would round out a sense of Eudora Welty,” he said. It was performed as part of last year’s International Festival in Chicago.

“The Western Avenue Project,” a collective piece inspired by the Patt Morrison series of articles on Western Avenue in The Times, will be done at the Ensemble in May, “overseen” by Kaplan.

“The thing the Ensemble should have been proudest of last year,” he said, “was the Lady Beth project (a steelworkers’ theater). Whether it was the greatest piece of theater or not, it was theater made out of the environment.

“What I’m asking is that every member contribute something--write or direct a piece about Western Avenue. It’s completely open in terms of responses. We’re inviting four other companies to participate: East West Players, the Inner City Cultural Center, the Los Angeles Black Playwrights’ Group and the Bilingual Foundation. Plus, I’m going to have a concert of church choirs, from gospel to Sephardic Jewish music--all free. “

Kaplan insists there will no longer be an admission charged for any workshop performance. He also has plans for a children’s company and, in June, the Ensemble will host a new one-woman play by Jane (“How to Raise a Gifted Child”) Anderson called ‘Defying Gravity.’ Not surprisingly, said he: “She flies in it.”

HERE AND THERE: Unconfirmed reports persist that the stage adaptation of Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior,” postponed from last year at the Mark Taper Forum and scheduled to open later this spring, might be postponed again. . . .

Robert Holly, director of management services for the Theatre Communications Group, is the newly contracted president of the California Theatre Council.

“It’ll take me a while to figure out the lay of the land,” he said from New York on Tuesday, “but it will be a wonderful opportunity and a nice reward to focus the knowledge I’ve acquired here (at TCG) and apply it in the next three years to the running of the council.” Holly will fly out in time to be present at the Theatre Council awards dinner Monday at the Beverly Hills Hotel. . . .

In listing the artists who contributed to the making of “Soph: A Visit With the Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” this writer neglected to mention one of the most crucial: Ricky Gilbert, whose gaudy chic costumes for actress Wendy Westerwelle spark the sizzle in the image of this red-hot mama. . . .

Elizabeth Savage and Joan Ryan have replaced B. J. Ward and Ann Morrison, respectively, in “Anyone Can Whistle” at the Dupree Studio Theatre through March 1.